Topics covered: Drupal 6 install on web hosting - Eric Huffman, Version control & staging - Alfred Bacon; Drupal security - Peter White & Adam Arrowood; Updates on GT Drupal 7 install profile.
I. Drupal 6 on Web Hosting (Eric Huffman)
PDF notes from Eric's presentation are attached below.
Overview
Although Webhosting offers a “one click” install of Drupal through the Web Applications option in the Plesk control panel, the D6 versions are out of date. For best results, install Drupal on your own.
1. No drush*
2. No git*
3. tar is available upon request (send e-mail to support@oit.gatech.edu)
4. PHP input format will not work (eval function is disabled on Webhosting), but you should probably not have that available anyway. Note that this does not affect the PHP option for supplying allowed values of a CCK field, or the default argument for a view.
5. You will probably need to submit a request to support@oit.gatech.edu to have your site allowed to use the PHP function preg_replace with the “e” modifier. Use of the “e” modifier in that function is considered a security risk, but it is called in a part of Drupal core, so if the modifier is not allowed cron will not run. The call in core on cron runs appears to be the only issue with the “e” modifier, but you might also find a similar issue with the devel module.
6. If you want PHP error reporting turned on for debugging purposes, add the following to your settings.php file under the PHP Settings section (starts around line 127): ini_set('display_errors', 1);
Using the Webhosting Plesk Control Panel
The control panel allows access to phpMyAdmin, plus tools for editing/uploading files to your docroot (and private directory), a Task Scheduler (crontab), the ability to manage domain aliases associated with the account, and access to the error logs.
Plesk Control Panel Tips
1. Disable any pop-up blockers on your browser when using the control panel
2. When setting up scheduled tasks, use a curl command in the “Command” field for running Drupal cron, such as:
curl --silent --compressed http://www.mysite.gatech.edu/cron.phpNote: if you want cron to run every 5 minutes, enter */5 for the minute option.
3. The import option in phpMyAdmin allows for uploading rather large .sql files, (2gig), but if you do experience time outs when importing through phpMyAdmin, try breaking the database up into separate imports of tables. If this still doesn’t work, you’ll probably need to contact OIT to have them import it for you (mysql commands aren’t available in the command line*.)
*coming soon?
II. Version Control & Development-Test-Production environments (Alfred Bacon)
Link to my super cool Prezi for the heck of it. http://prezi.com/izoxwm6z9ouf/drupal-with-local-development-version-control-staging-and-production-environments/
Git repository locations
Drush makefiles git://git.dlpe.gatech.edu/drupal/makefiles.git
Drupal 6 installation profile git://git.dlpe.gatech.edu/installation_profiles/drupal6_development.git (Make sure you rename the folder to /path/to/drupal6/profiles/development)
Drupal 7 installation profile git://git.dlpe.gatech.edu/installation_profiles/drupal7_development.git (Make sure you rename the folder to /path/to/drupal7/profiles/development)
Drupal 7 GT theme git://git.dlpe.gatech.edu/themes/gt7.git (DLPE variant that goes with D7 installation profile)
Make & Drush
You can use the make files to install a new instance of Drupal with the Drush command:
% drush make drupal7.make /www/mydrupal7
Otherwise if you try to use the install profiles you'll have to make sure all the modules it needs are already in place.
Resources mentioned
- Redmine (http://www.redmine.org/) Issue tracker/project management. With plugin hosts Git repos.
- Gitosis (http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories-the-easy-and-secure-way) Manages access to Git repositories. Gitolite may be a better option.
- Selenium (http://seleniumhq.org/) tool for in browser testing
- Git Tower (http://www.git-tower.com/) Mac OS X Git GUI client
- Jenkins (http://jenkins-ci.org/) Continuous integration, code testing
Modules you should be using
- Module filter
- Masquerade
- Features
- Devel
- Admin role (D6)
- Blocks404 (D6)
- Admin Menu
- Backup & Migrate
- Demo
- Migrate
III. Drupal Security updates & web hosting (Adam Arrowood & Peter White)
It is CRUCIAL to keep your drupal sites patched with Security updates!
Check http://drupal.org/security (or sign up for email notifications on drupal.org) to know as soon as security patches are needed for core and for the contributed modules you are using.
IV. Drupal 7
Adelle Frank (OIT/Clough) and Alfred Bacon (DLPE) working on a Drupal 7 install profile.
Usually, easier to create a CLEAN D7 install and then manually migrate content (with help of students) than to try and actually use the migrate functions in drupal.
V. Drupal.gatech.edu
Open to Community contribution.
Perhaps will be based on OpenAtrium distribution?
Common install profile and theme needed?
VI. This meeting
Needs to meet earlier (pre-lunch).